tlse

By Jack Dionne

their lumber yards again; lumber for ordinary use; lumber of quality and usefulness, and not the kind of stuff they have been forced to handle in the last couple of years.

But it is not a great shock, for the dealer who txists today has been learning in practical fashion for two years to make money in a lumber yard, with very little lumber. Ife has found that it can be done. He has found that he can make money doing it. He has found that his trade understands his position and is amazingly tolerant of his efforts to supply them under great difficulties.

So, the live lumber dealer and building material merchant is going to meet this new crisis just as he has met so many since the war started. He is going to put his thinking cap on, likewise his working clothes, and he is going to figure out what he can sell and how he can sell it to the advantage of his customers in the immediate future.

Substitution he must indulge in as he has never done before. His every bit of ingenuity must be devoted to discovering merchandise he can get and sell.

In this column one year ago today, under the title-"Let's Take Off Our Blinke15"-f told the dealer to get ready to run a comparatively lumberless lumber yard in 1944; told' him what he could sell that his trade would buy; enumerated scores of things that the dealer could get and sell, if he went at it right. That editorial was reprinted and quoted more than any other business editorial in the history of this journal.

I am just egotistical enough to believe that it was of great benefit to the lumber dealers generally, because its advice was followed by tens of thousands of dealers the nation over. And most of them survived the vear: and should survive the year to come.

Every yard cannot follow the same line of procedure that every other yard does. Each locality will have its differences of condition; also of supply. Some merchandise will be procurable and salable in one locality, that will not fit another. That's what the dealer has got his brains for; to fit his situation to his business.

I asked the manager of a line of very progressive lumber yards what they were doing right now to meet the lumberless situation. lle wrote; "At different points we are doing different things, depending on our personnel, town, conditions, etc. At some places we have regular racket stores, in every sense of the word, although we have tried everywhere to stay in our own line of business as much as possible. We have worked up a tremendous line of paint and wallpaper business at all our points, and it would be larger if we could get the mechanics. We are prefabricating many farm items in our rural yards, because the farmer hasn't the time or help to build these things himself. The customer is patient and tolerant, and you can sell anything you can get hold of. I DON'T SEE WHY EVERY

DEALER SFIOULD NOT HAVE ALL THE BUSINI]SS rItr CAN HANDLE WITH HIS PERSONNE,L."

That last line is a good enough text for any merchandising sermon. And the clealer who has survived the last year doesn't have to be preached to, because he has learned rvhat can be done.

Most of the iterns and articlcs that the dealers generally rvere able to sell through the past tr,r'elve months, he cau still get. Some of them are scarcer than others; some more plentiful.

I-ooking back to my editorial a year ago today, I suggested that the dealer could get ancl sell : Doors, rvindorvs, sash, glass, screen doors, mirror doors, a general line of paints, wallpaper, cement, lime, nails ar.rd other available metals, r,vire products, building papers, glues and adhesives, soil removers for cleaning woodwork, screen door grilles, .ventilator louvres, valleys and flashings and rain protections, plumbing fixtures, electrical fixtures, floor refinishers, hardwood flooring, mouldings, wood preservatives, termite treatments, wood crack fillers, disappearing stairways, built-ins such as ironing-boards, medicine cabinets, telephone cabinets, kitchen cabinets, corner cabinets, venetian blinds, plywood, fiber boards and insulation, asphalt products of many sorts, asbestos products of many kinds for both interior and exterior use, farm implements, pre-fabricated items for the farmer and the Victory gardener, ladders, farm containers, garden implements, etc.

All these things are to be'had today. I know dealers rvho have gone much farther into the handling of electrical and plumbing supplies than ever before. I knor,v dealers who have even developed a nice business in kitchen stoves and ranges. Some yards have become racket stores, selling a line of small goods that tvould fiIl this page enumerating.

But the merchandise the lumber merchant has made a killing with this past year has been asphalt, asbestos, gypsum, and insulating lines. The manufacturers, quick to see and alert to seize upon the low-lumber supply, have turned their ingenuity to the production of items that substitute for innumerable common Lrses of lumber. And the dealer has taken splendid advantage of these sales opportunities. Give a dealer a few pieces of dimension and he can build almost anything the regulations permit. If some genius would just discover a good substitute for 2x4's, this thing would be a cinch.

So, Mr. Dealer, sit down and do a little planning for the opening months of the new year. Apply that intelligence that has so far served you so well in meeting this continuing emerg'ency, and you will be still around, and still grinning, r,r'henever things DO change.

But, for the moment, you must plan to get along with less and less lumber. You must sultstitute-or else.

Will Mcrnage Yard

Alfred (Bill) Taylor has been appointecl manager of the Hayward Lumber & Investment Co. yard at Blythe. Bill has been with the Hayward organization for fifteen years and has been assistant lnanager of their yard at Corona.

Harry Stiles, formerly with the Alert Lumber Company at Be11, has been named assistant manager of the Blythe yard.